Bipolar
by Malthusia
Summary: An anxiety attack after a mission goes horribly wrong. Duo POV - Short Mental Health Oneshot - Complete


The pills tasted chalky and stuck to the back of my throat. Not even with a mouthful of water could the vile flavour be washed away. My hands shook uncontrollably as I twisted the lid back onto the bottle.

Because of course, you give a mobile suit, a weapon of mass destruction to a mentally unstable teenage boy. You train them to be a terrorist and to fight for a lost cause. And all the while that boy swings dramatically from being able to fight with bursts of energy, to five minutes later sitting on a bathroom floor slicing his flesh open. The self-inflicted wounds an attempt to control either thoughts of despair or to dig out each and every invisible ant that is crawling over their skin.

My name is Duo Maxwell, and I am bipolar. Some mistake it for being a moody teenager going through adolescence in a world rife with war and destruction, but the pills prescribed for my 'condition' tell a different story.

They say that this 'condition' could be caused by genetics, though I never knew my parents, so I have little confidence in this assumption. They then say it could have been brought on by a traumatic event. Now, is the systematic slaughter of my adoptive family in the Maxwell Church Massacre traumatic enough? I'm not sure. But what I know for certain is that I have always felt this way. So the reason that I am so mentally fucked up may just be down to luck.

Days where you would class your emotional state as 'normal' are few and far between for me. The God of Death likes to bless me with days, sometimes weeks, and even months at a time, of days of deep depression. I see flashes of the faces of the people I have murdered in this war and it takes the idea of knowing that I might be the only one that can save thousands of lives, to stop me taking my Gundam, my dearest Deathscythe, and pressing that self-detonation button and ending it all in a fiery blaze. Then again, on the day that I might finally be able to go through with it all, in my Gundam or by a pistol shot to the temple, my mood may swing to that euphoric high that makes me able to keep fighting.

Euphoria, mania, whatever you want to call it. I end up not being able to control myself. I throw myself into everything. Into the destruction and death called upon by this mission. And all the time my heart may race and my skin may crawl. Reckless at times in fighting. And caring not a moment for my own life as we wreak havoc. My Gundam and I a single entity becoming a demon who is feared by all. Enemy and ally alike.

And it is days like this where I find my heart beating so uncontrollably that the nausea drags me to a bathroom, where all I can manage to do is dry heave as I clutch the porcelain bowl with my knuckles turning white. In this interlude between deaths I cannot control myself. The carpet of this small safe house in the mountains is worn bare by my insistent pacing back and forth. At its worst, these little yellow pills may help to slow me down. Perhaps my racing thoughts can finally catch up with themselves. But too slow is a danger to myself and the others around me.

Sometimes the company of my fellow pilots is enough to distract me. Yet I do believe it is why they think of me as a happy go lucky joker, I have enough different pills to keep me outwardly functioning but inside is a turmoil of emotions.

The pills that were now caught in my throat were washed down with another mouthful of water. If the others saw me like this then no doubt they would think to remove me from active service, and share my missions out amongst themselves. I couldn't bare the embarrassment of it all.

I had returned to this safe house after a particularly violent mission destroying an OZ airfield and had arrived before Heero. I had repaired, refuelled, and refilled Deathscythe's ammunition. But the adrenaline of the night's events was still coursing through my veins. Usually this would of subsided hours ago. But the more I focused on the fact that this nervous energy was still in my system, the more my anxiety would build about it.

Twenty minutes later and the chemicals had done little to my addled brain. The occasional beat that my heart missed sent the edges of my vision blurry. I was pacing so much now that you could describe my body as being flung carelessly around the room. I wouldn't blink or wince as a table edge would dig into my leg as I fell onto it.

"Maxwell…"

I barely registered the Japanese boy's voice, so locked into the depths of my own mind as I was. Subconsciously my hands reached up around myself, pressing deeply onto the most recent of the cuts that marred my upper arms. The pain felt distant. Like the throb of a stubbed toe from hours ago. Really they should have stung. They had been deep and thick. Performed with the blade I kept hidden in my cockpit for emergencies. Carving into your body in order to punish yourself is an emergency isn't it?

"MAXWELL!"

The voice came again. My pacing slowed as I turned to him. I pressed harder on my arms, feeling no release. The pain should have anchored me and brought me to my senses but no matter how hard I pressed I felt nothing "Hee… Heero…"

My knees crumpled below me and I sank to the floor to sit on my heels. I wanted to desperately to cry but found I couldn't. Through being taught so thoroughly that boys don't cry over the years or the emotional numbness I cannot tell. But in seeing my thighs before me, I stroked my palms over them with the same vigour that I pressed into the cuts on my arm. Nothing, I felt nothing from the cuts under my black jeans.

Panic rose from within. My hands balled into fists and I brought them down hard on my legs. Nothing… Again and again I brought my fists down on them, expecting to feel anything even if it was nothing but a dull ache. With such ferocity I bruised the skin beneath. But the only thing I could feel was my heart beat throughout my body.

Over and over again I punched at my legs until strong calloused hands grabbed my wrists. I tried to pull away but the hands gripped tighter until my own started to become white. "Duo…"

The call of my name wrenched me back to my senses. "Heero?"

He nodded mutely at me, supressing the likely fear and surprise he felt from seeing me in such a state.

"I… I… I can't… I can't feel anything." The grip on my wrists loosened enough that my hands fell to my lap. As though all the energy I had had washed out of me like a waterfall being released. "Everything… nothing is real anymore."

I felt myself being pulled into an awkward hug. A boy unused to showing any emotion of his own, lifting his veil for the first time. "Everything is going to be okay," I heard him whisper in my ear.

"Everything is going to be okay."

Hey guys, you know me. I write when I feel down. Here is a short one shot of me messing around with Duo's psyche as usual. Now before you say that Heero is OOT I actually think not. So meh.


End file.
